As of 2019, Kate Dernocoeur was a newly-retired EMT-firefighter, but still a nationally registered Wilderness-EMT. It was December, 1973 on a two-week NOLS winter mountaineering course when she first heard the term “Emergency Medical Technician,” and at that moment she snapped her fingers, pointed at the group and proclaimed, “THAT’s what I want to do.”
“The emergency services are filled with heartbreaking stories. This is a “given,” given the nature of the work. That said, things usually go well and are made better… But sometimes there are factors in play when outcomes go “south” that highlight less-than-stellar public safety performance... The following story is one of the avoidably heartbreaking kind, but by telling it, my hope is that it can help prevent further preventable tragedies.”
“Even though I am far from the firestorms of wrongful, hateful actions so painfully evident in the murder of Tyre Nichols in January, I cannot ignore them. I cannot stop feeling both furious and helpless. I cannot stop hearing Tyre’s voice being the only one of calm and reason. I cannot stop knowing that, if not for the irrefutable evidence of body cams and stree-pole video, Tyre Nichols’s manner of death might not ever have been brought to light…”
“I need you to prepare ahead of time for your worst day. If nothing else, please—today! right now!— go out and assess how easily emergency crews would know that they have arrived at your address. Will people unfamiliar with your place be easily able to see your street number from a distance, night or day, rain or snow?”
“What would it be like to be slammed by two Category 4 hurricanes in two weeks? Ask Honduras. On Nov.3, 2020, Hurricane Eta arrived, with Hurricane Iota hard on her heels, arriving Nov, 17. Worse, the hillsides were already saturated from an already record-breaking storm season. Oh, and it was of course the middle of the pandemic.”
“The second week of April celebrates a group dear to my heart: 911 dispatchers. They are the ones you’ll talk to if/when you are in the throes of a need for emergency assistance. At that moment, surely, your heart rate will be elevated, you will feel an urgent need for help, and you will be grateful for that calm professional who answers your call: the dispatcher…”
“For ages, many people have grown up wishing to become a firefighter or police officer… Then there’s EMS. Emergency Medical Services. EMTs. MFRs. Paramedics. Medics. Ambulances. Rescue. What? Who or what are all these things? The general public is understandably confused by the jumble of EMS terms.”
“Does your work in emergency care need a streetsense infusion? Try Streetsense IV – that is, the 4th edition of this longtime participant within the ranks of EMS literature! Often referred to (by others) as an “EMS classic”.
“It was a nasty crash: five vehicles, one on its roof, another ripped in half. One fatality. My job was traffic control.”
“Here inside, it’s time at last to start over again on my first book, Streetsense: Communication, Safety and Control…”
“The elephant in the room inside my head is the intensity of disappointment that comes with what happened last Thursday…”
“Checkpoint 13, I swear, borrowed the invisibility cloak from Harry Potter. It had attained mythological status for many people, including me…”
“Last night, Checkpoint 13 thwarted me—again. It is my second try at the Land Navigation night test in the woods and hillsides surrounding Hall Lake…”
“On August 7 this year, an impressive gathering of aging, now mostly-retired paramedics from those early days gathered to honor Bob Marlin, one of the original DGH paramedics and for many years our Chief Paramedic.”
“I remember looking down from the high seat at you, knowing enough not even to try reasoning with you. Any discussion or review of the facts was clearly not possible.”
“As I was driving home along the quiet streets of the middle of the night from a medical call at 0330 (that’s 3:30 a.m.) recently, that old Army pitch came to mind: ‘Join the Army, See the World’. ”
“A successful interview is like opening a treasure box of information. A good question gets to the point in a way that encourages the recipient to be both willing and able to give me the answer I seek.”
